Author
Topic: newbie to sourdough (Read 14734 times)

It smells realy good right now as I wait for it to cool. But I'm resisting the temptation. Yes it looks odd. When I tightened the dough before putting in the fridge overnight, by folding the sides to the bottom-middle of the dough, I must've not pinched them together good enough. How should I have 'sealed' the bottom of the loaf? It was 1:30am when I pinched it together so I was about half asleep when I did it. Hey, you gotta make some mistakes to learn from.

The crust is nice and hard, which I absolutely love in a sourdough bread. I'll take some pictures of the internals shortly when it's cooled.

Here are couple pics of the 'horn' growing out of the bottom of the bread. I decided to cut that first and my god is it tasty. It is at the perfect sourness and I think it'll be airy enough for me; for me sourdough is all about air pockets. Pretty strong but not overkill and definitely not mild. My fiance and cats like it quite a bit. I'll take some more photos of the real stuff soon. I cannot believe I created this bread from scratch....good stuff...

Few more pics of the actual 'meat' of the bread. Maybe could've baked this another 5-10 minutes but it sure tastes good and definitely not dried out. I'm really surprised how airy this turned out, lot of air pockets....yummy.....

Another comment, this was entirely hand-kneaded for about 5 minutes before the autolyse. I then added the salt after the autolyse and kneaded for 10 minutes, again by hand. I continuously had to dust my hands with flour to keep from sticking.

I didn't think about the slashes. I still think I should've sealed the bottom better than I did. Maybe if the dough was wetter I could've pinched it better. I know I should've cut them a little deeper but I had a really dull knife and no razor blades to work with. Should really invest in a lame if I plan on making bread on a regular basis.

Instead of a banneton I used a colander with a thin towel in it. Did the job just fine but I think I over-dusted the towel prior to placing the dough. I didn't want the dough to stick at all to the towel.

No pictures of the pizza. It was just not worthy of pictures. Extremely subpar, one of my worst pizzas to date, right up there with my 'no-salt' pizza.

Thanks for the complement. There are a couple things I can improve on the next time. It really has a nice sour taste to it so I plan on keeping the starter around for a very long time. I can't believe I have quality airborne yeast in my kitchen. I didn't expect for it to be as airy as it is, a very good thing indeed.

Well, I activated my first wild yeast this weekend, the Italian (Camaldoli). Will activate the Ischia and French sourdough cultures later. I remember folks here using the Ischia for their pizzas, just curious why the Camaldoli wasn't used...

As for the process, the seedling heating mat worked to perfection. Wood's description of the starter at 24 hours was what I had within about 6 hours. I used carbon-filtered water microwaved to 85F, bread flour, and the mat kept the contents rocking at about 80F all weekend. Now feeding every 6-12 hours. I'm not sure when I should stick it in the fridge, but it looks doggone robust to me. I just want to be sure.

Some observations:

The first feeding I poured the water in, and as it broke the surface there was a huge upwelling of whitish bubbles, that I assume was CO2 trapped under the surface.

The smell has been uniform throughout. Mrs. Finny thinks it smells like my feet, but I would compare it to sweet rotting hay and maybe some overtones of Oktoberfest beers. I like it! It's funky, but I like it!

The visual has been one of consistent surface activity and bubbling, some pockets of liquid, but a look of a dense pancake batter. At one time, it was growing really fast, so I "punched it down" with a clean whisk, and it reduced by about 75% volume. In successive feedings and stirrings, it hasn't lost any volume, and is now thick and rich. Overnight last night, it did separate for the first time into about 3/4" flour sediment, 3/4" liquid in the middle, and 3/4" foamy good stuff on top.

I really need a digital camera to document.

Am thinking about splitting this activation, taking some off and drying it to preserve a backup. If all looks good tomorrow, I may refrigerate (4 days total, Saturday-Tuesday). It just seems that active.

Logged

Education: that which reveals to the wise, and conceals from the stupid, the vast limits of their knowledge. --Mark Twain

I remember folks here using the Ischia for their pizzas, just curious why the Camaldoli wasn't used...

I use Camaldoli for pizzas - it has such a great flavor. In fact, I made a batch of baguettes with the Camaldoli last week and they were so good, I may switch to it for baguettes. I do think I have neglected the Ischia and should experiment more with it. One of the many dilemmas in getting to know your starters is that the conditions that produce the best flavor don't necessarily produce the best rise and texture. The French pissaladiera that I made yesterday (and is described in the "other pizza types" section) was just a one-day bread. I think the texture could have benefited from a multi-day retard, but that flavor was just sensational In my experience, Ischia with a multi-day rise had a great texture, but not nearly as fine a flavor as the one-day rise. Something to work on, but I'm convinced each starter has one or more sweetspots in which the flavor and texture are maximized.

I could be wrong, but I think that most people here on the forum using the italian sourdough starters are using the camaldoli for pizza. I prefer the Ischia myself, but I have always thought that I was in the minority. For some reason I like the flavor of the ischia better. The good thing about the camaldoli is that it seems to move faster so you can get away with slightly shorter proofing times. Either way you are in very good hands as they both have excellent flavor and excellent lift. For the past two weeks I had been experimenting with the King Arthur classic culture available on their site. It works, but I found that it was not as good at raising the dough, and did not have as sweet a flavor of the Italian cultures.

It doesn't sound to me like your cultures are fully active yet, so I really don't think you should separate any out to put in the fridge for later. Once you are fully active you can do that.

Be careful, as hooch in the middle means that contamination could be happening. If it doesn't start smelling really good (not like feet) soon you will surly have to do a wash.

FYI I have never activated a culture from sourdo.com without having it get contaminated and needing a wash.

For the past two weeks I had been experimenting with the King Arthur classic culture available on their site. It works, but I found that it was not as good at raising the dough, and did not have as sweet a flavor of the Italian cultures.

I just ordered the LA-4 French starter from the King Arthur flour website and the website claims " Dry starter creates an assertive sourdough loaf; it includes lactobacillus type San Francisco, the bacteria that gives San Francisco sourdough its characteristic bite."

Once I received the starter the package clearly states it contains s. Cerevisiae, l. pantarum, and l. Brevis. Nowhere on the package does it state that it contains L. San Francisco. I emailed them and pointed out the discrepancy. Rather than take down their false advertisement, they decided to credit my card.

I was hoping this culture was going to contain L San Francisco, but it doesn't based on what the package says. Now unless L. San Francisco is being called l. Pantarum or l. Brevis, their website is incorrect. I will just have to order some from sourdo.com as others here have had good success using them.

Here are some pics of a sourdough I made today. Again it was underrisen and I got oven spring where I didn't want it. Tastes good though, almost too crunchy crust for me. The surface of my bread never appears the way it does in professional photos though, probably too much flour.

kidder, i do not know if this is the problem, but i have noticed that in the diagram the four slashes all intersect each other, forming a square with extra lines beyond whereas with yours they do not quite meet up.

1) Slash the top of the dough like a Checkerboard grid. This way you will direct more of the expansion upward.

2) Use less dough. It seems that the mass of dough you are using gets cooked too quickly on the outside, then the raw portion inside is erupting like lava from within this hard shell. Think of a thermal lava vent in the ocean....

3) Lower your oven temp and cook for a longer time. If the outside cooks too hot, too fast, forming a tough crust, you get more oven spring in areas you don't really want it.

4) Put a pan of water in the bottom of your oven. This will help soften the crust and keep the bread moist. Professional ovens making sourdough typically inject steam into the baking process. From the photos, your crust looks exceptionally hard and dry.

I'll take those into consideration next time. I know the dough was underrisen because it wasn't even near doubled in size. The thing about a simple white sourdough bread is it's so cheap to make, so you can try over and over again without spending a lot of money on ingredients, until you get it perfected. I'll make another this weekend, taking my time to let it fully rise.

I've activated the Camaldoli, Ischia and French yeasts now in intervals. The hooch layer I reported earlier has not been an issue; for whatever reason, it's been rather minor with all cultures ever since. It may not have even been hooch, as it seemed to be in the middle and did not bear an alcoholic smell, so that may have been a mistaken diagnosis on my part.

The Camaldoli activated rather quickly, but I was afraid I had refrigerated it too early. I took it out the following weekend, reduced its volume, and fed it, and it was up and perky in no time. In fact, I've had horrible luck baking bread, and just decided to use some of the liquid to try a quick loaf from the Ed Wood book. It leavened very nicely, even though I had to leave suddenly and decided to stick the dough in the fridge so that it wouldn't over-rise. IMO, the crumb was a bit dense, and I question the hydration level of that recipe. Next attempt I'll use Crust and Crumb. And similar to Kidder, I don't think I was zealous enough in slicing the dough, as my two baguettes rose astoundingly and opened large crevices on the sides. Took the advice of the pan of water, making sure mine was hot out of the tap. That worked very well.

The Ischia activated VERY quickly. Not sure what accounts for the difference in activation speeds, but this one was clearly fully active within about two days. In fact, as the jar sat on the seedling heating mat on my counter, I could hear Italian songs and what I think was some sort of carnival going on in there. I was very happy with the Ischia.

The French culture was a bit sleepy. I was about to say it was a bad batch when, on day 3, it started showing bubbles and then bloomed at an incredible rate. It was slower in the earlier stages and much more active in the later.

So now I have three jars in the fridge, and any time I take them out to feed them or just give them a sniff, my wife gives me a dirty look. You've been playing with your yeasts again, haven't you?

Yes, but to me, they smell like pure invention.

Can't wait to try making my first pizza dough using the starter.

Logged

Education: that which reveals to the wise, and conceals from the stupid, the vast limits of their knowledge. --Mark Twain

The French culture was a bit sleepy. I was about to say it was a bad batch when, on day 3, it started showing bubbles and then bloomed at an incredible rate. It was slower in the earlier stages and much more active in the later.

Yea those French are quite lazy... give them a good kick in the ass and tell them to get to work or else you will make cornbread out of them!